I have changed the look of the blog, but the blog is still the same. I am hoping to eventually completely customize the blog with my own images, but for now, I just don’t have the time. Anyway, I hope you like the new theme.

Spring is here and I have decided to expand my planting from container gardening to doing some planting in the ground. You might think, okay big deal. The thing is our soil is so, so bad! It is like clay. So I (and my husband) dug and dug, and added garden soil, and dug some more. I started small…one raspberry bush, i green pepper plant, one tomato plant, some sunflowers and some wildflowers for the backyard.

I don’t know if you have heard of companion planting, but marigolds seem to be a great companion for tomato plants, so I added some of those in the mix too.

Where do we find the inspiration to create? For me, nature is a huge inspiration. I love the colors, lines, and variety nature has to offer. I am at my happiest when I am surrounded by lush green grass, foliage, and colorful flowers. Okay, I lied. That is my second happiest. My utmost content state is and will always be along the seashore.

Other things that inspire me are patterns of any kind. I am not only fascinated by the patterns in nature but (and my husband and kids think I’m nuts) stacks of construction materials draw my attention as well.

Sometimes, I am inspired by my own work. Sound weird? Sometimes I look at something I did a while back and get ideas for ways to apply certain elements to a new piece.

This stack of wood caught my interest while going for a walk in the neighborhood.

I photographed this flower in San Diego last fall. Nature is a wondrous thing.

These peonies at our local Botanical Gardens were so colorful they were practically screaming my name.

These are but a few photos of my inspirations. There is so much more I could share, but now I would love to hear from you. What inspires you to create art?

I said I would post some my my first official Zentangles, so here goes:

In March my 13 year old son was admitted to the hospital (he was newly diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis) and of course I stayed with him, so I had a lot of time to paint and draw. It was actually the artist-in-residence at Cook Children’s Hospital that introduced me to the art of Zentangle (though I had been doodling with patterns long before). So of course I had to try it out and before long I was adding water colors as well. Three weeks worth of artwork (if you can call it that) was up on his hospital room wall by the time we left.

Car

These pictures were taken with my phone so they are not the best quality, but you get the idea…

April already??? This year has been full of stress loaded events already, most of which I will not bore you with. That is just my excuse for not having posted anything in four months. The first “goal” of the year – cutting out Dr. Pepper = epic fail. (As I write this I am gleefully sipping on some of that rusty brown nectar of death.) Oops, correct grammar usage has gone out the window too. Oh well, life is too short to worry too much about such trivial matters (at least on here).

On to the next and real subject of my post, Zentangle. I was recently introduced to this official “new” art form. New? Say what? I have, as well as many others, I’m sure, been doodling and drawing with the Zentangle method for years. So someone gave it a name. Good for them. But puh-leeease, don’t think you were the first to ever doodle/draw in this manner. And now they have certified Zentangle teachers? Give. Me. A. Break! Surely one does not need to be taught how to doodle. Nevertheless, I do applaud the “inventors” of this method for bringing zentangling to light. I never thought my doodles amounted to much and I certainly wouldn’t call them art, but now I ind out that maybe they are artwork after all! Yippee, I am an artist, a tangler, a zentangler – albeit not a certified one.

Come back soon for a glimpse of some of my doodles and tangles, recent and not so recent.

Happy New Year everyone! I have made a fail safe resolution this year: to not make any New Year’s resolutions. That being said, I am setting some goals. Only short term, baby steps, one day at a time kind of goals though, because that would be all I can achieve. My inherently disorganized personality prevents me from planning for the long term, much as I would like to. So I pick goals that can be achieved quickly, and (relatively) painlessly. Well, except for the “cut sodas out of my diet” one.That might be kind of painful. Most of my goals are centered around creating new habits. One. At. A. Time. Hopefully it will be easier that way. The first one is going to be to cut Dr Pepper from my diet. (As i raise a glass of , yep its DP, to my mouth). But you see, I can start on my goals any time, and I have chosen to wait until the kids go back to school on Monday. Less stress that way, and, I won’t take that nagging, needy, “feel like I want to strangle someone because i want a DP” feeling out on them. Of course when they get home from school……well, all bets are off !